Self-centered foes thwarted Navistar

It is a mixed blessing to live in a country where great efforts are made to protect honest people from the misuse of power, only to realize that those protections can then be adulterated to the benefit of self-centered people who have enough money to do so.

It was very frustrating to have to watch in silence, because my husband is on the Lisle Planning and Zoning Commission, the shenanigans of a small group of people who succeeded in bringing down what might have been a fabulous opportunity for the village, a proposal by Navistar to move its world headquarters to our town. This small group used obstructionist tactics to hijack the hearing process, and prevented the commission from doing its job. They unfairly attacked Navistar, and turned the public hearing process into a trial.

Their tactic was to test everyone's patience with delays and irrelevancies, to the point where either a commissioner or a witness said something they could attack, or Navistar gave up and walked away. The commission was never allowed to discuss the valid points of the application as they applied to the hearing stage of the process, or allowed to vote on the merit of the application. And now Lisle has lost a significant opportunity to bring jobs and revenue to the village. There is a significant possibility the state of Illinois will be a big loser in this as well.

The only real opposition to this project was a small group of people of means who live near the site in question. This group shrank as people realized what was going on; it was nothing more than a NIMBY issue.

These obstructionist neighbors played the system. They pushed the line carefully, but consistently. They played dirty in spirit without appearing to play dirty. It was a lousy game.

Lucy Gaven

Lisle